Silence Festival

"The five festivals listed below should be good, but connoisseurs should take their cue from these as regards what to look for and prepare for more generally in the festival summer."

Collaborative composing is not common among Finnish composers of art music, and the approach raises several critical questions. Is it even possible to share musical creation and innovation with another person? Does group work inevitably lead to bland or incoherent compromises, or can it produce art of a high quality? Is the incentive for engaging in this that it is trendy or that commissioners want it that way, or do composers have other reasons for co-authoring works? Despite the numerous reservations, some composers have found collaboration to be an enriching aspect of writing music.

“The best collaborations empower or even improve their participants. Whenever guitarist Marzi Nyman stepped up during Silence Festival he seemed to lift the creative discourse to another level with his gregarious, joyous musicianship.”